The number of concentrated animal feeding
operations (CAFOs, a.k.a. “factory farms”)
in the U.S. is 19,000 and growing, according to the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). There
is “fierce” debate over whether farmers
and ranchers should be held responsible for the manure
they cause to be generated. The Agriculture Protection
and Prosperity Act (APPA), pending in the U.S. House
and Senate, aims to exempt manure from the EPA’s
"Superfund law," which addresses cleanup
of hazardous and toxic chemical spills. Supporters
of the legislation claim that virtually every farm
could be subject to millions of dollars in liabilities
and penalties if manure was regulated by the EPA.
They argue that agriculture operations are already
(over)regulated under the Clean Water and Clean Air
acts, in addition to other federal and state environmental
laws. Opponents of such an exemption, including the
attorney generals of eight states, cite the need for
such legal means to help prevent and clean-up contamination
caused by manure.

On September 6th, Oklahoma Attorney
General Drew Edmondson testified before the U.S. Senate
Environment and Public Works Committee, which is reviewing
the APPA, as to how CAFOs affect public health. Edmondson
filed suit in 2005 against a number of poultry companies,
charging them with violating the Superfund law by
polluting the Illinois River watershed (see: http://tinyurl.com/2v3olt).
He said the amount of poulty litter spread as fertilizer
on fields there each year is equivalent to the amount
of waste produced by nearly 11 million people. Edmondson
contends that manure in such concentrations should
be considered hazardous waste under the Superfund
law, noting that normal application of litter as fertilizer
is already exempted from it. He contends that poultry
companies initiated the APPA in response to the lawsuit.
A poultry industry representative points out efforts
at redress that industry has made. Senator Barbara
Boxer, chair of the Committee, sided with Edmondson,
commenting: "I'm ready to take this on…
And I will have a lot of friends with me."

Purdue University (Indiana) has announced
a new website featuring scientific information about
CAFOs to assist zoning boards, planning commissions,
agricultural extension educators, as well as citizens
and farmers: http://128.210.145.21/CAFO/

Ohio is said to be 7th in the U.S. for
the number of concentrated animal feeding operations
(CAFOs), with Iowa topping the list at 3,876 sites.
They have nearly doubled in Ohio since 2002, when
state legislators transferred regulatory oversight
of farms from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency
(OEP) to the Ohio Department of Agriculture (ODA).
In doing so, the lawmakers cited the latter’s
expertise in dealing with farmers and agriculture
issues.

Trent Dougherty, staff attorney for
the Ohio Environmental Council (OEC), contends that
the change means the ag community can instead deal
with its “friends” at the ODA. Remarking
on the fines the ODA has levied compared to those
by the OEP, Dougherty charges: "A fine of $700,
$200? That's not a disincentive…That's a line
item in a yearly budget for these operators."
In defense of his agency, ODA Director Bob Boggs declared:
"We are waging a war with the western part of
the U.S. that has huge farms, much larger than ours…”
He asserts: "I will maintain we do a lot better
job in protecting the environment on these permitted
farms than what's been done in the small family farms
over the years." Farms are also being developed
just below the size that triggers oversight, including
regular inspections, by the ODA. The OEC is calling
for a one-year moratorium on new permits to try to
ensure that correct regulations are in place. See
also: http://tinyurl.com/2szm8w

Legislation banning the construction
of new pig waste lagoons and commencing programs to
upgrade existing lagoons to meet stricter environmental
standards has been signed into law by the governor
of North Carolina. The law also includes an initiative
to generate electricity from methane gas collected
from animal waste. A cost-sharing program will be
available to industry for conversion to the new technologies,
with the state covering a large majority of the costs.

“Humanity’s continued consumption
of animals is not only morally problematic but also
highly imprudent,” writes David Benatar in an
editorial entitled: The Chickens Come Home to Roost,
in the Sept. 2007 issue of the American Journal of
Public Health. Benatar, a Ph.D. in the philosophy
department at the University of Cape Town, South Africa,
discusses hazards posed to human health from using
animals for food. He considers conditions to which
animals are subjected in relation to diseases such
as avian influenza, HIV/AIDS, and “mad cow”
disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy), noting:
“Although some zoonoses [diseases transmissible
from nonhumans to humans] are probably unavoidable,
much human suffering resulting from zoonotic diseases
could probably have been avoided had humans treated
animals better.” Benatar observes: "It
is curious, therefore, that changing the way humans
treat animals—most basically ceasing to eat
them or, at the very least, radically limiting the
quantity of them that are eaten—is largely off
the radar as a significant preventive measure."
He admonishes: “Those who consume animals not
only harm those animals and endanger themselves, but
they also threaten the well-being of other humans
who currently or will later inhabit this planet.”

In 2003, the American Public Heath Association
issued a resolution urging all federal, state, and
local authorities to impose an immediate moratorium
on the building of new farmed animal confinement operations
out of concern for their impact on the health of workers
and communities (see: http://tinyurl.com/2ueygv
).

“[T]he idolatry of food cuts across
class lines. This can be seen in the public's toleration
of a level of cruelty in meat production that it would
tolerate nowhere else. If someone inflicts pain on
an animal for visual, aural, or sexual gratification,
we consider him a monster, and the law makes at least
a token effort at punishment. If someone's goal is
to put the "product" in his mouth? Chacun
à son goût.” In a review of Michael
Pollan’s bestseller, “The Omnivore’s
Dilemma” (see: http://tinyurl.com/yacaro
), B.R. Myers takes foodies and food writers to task.
He asserts that in using words such as “sinful,”
“decadent,” and “evils” to
describe indulgent food, food writers demonstrate
their “hostility to the very language of moral
values.” Myers observes, however, that “when
asked to laugh at the suffering of a living thing,
or to drown out a moral compunction by turning up
the TV, the American meat eater begins to sense that
his values are not so far from the vegetarian's after
all.”

Focusing on Pollan, Myers states: “…he
derives the rightness of meat eating from the fact
that humans are physically suited to it, they enjoy
it, and they have engaged in it until modern times
without feeling much ‘ethical heartburn’…According
to Pollan, this 'reality' demands our respect. The
same reasoning could be used to defend our mistreatment
of children: In body and instinct, we are marvelously
well-equipped for making their lives hell. If many
cultures now object to abusing them, it is thanks
to new values, to people who refused to respect the
time-honored ‘reality.’" Myers continues:
“But by reducing man's moral nature to an extension
of our instincts, Pollan is free to present his appetite
as a sort of moral-o-meter, the final authority for
judging the rightness of all things culinary.”
He observes that Pollan “apparently believes
that we cannot fully relate to animals until they
become food. In the introduction, we are told that
eating something – ‘transforming the body
of the world into our bodies and minds’ -- constitutes
the deepest possible ‘relationship’ with
it, ‘the most profound engagement’ of
all.” Myers notes that Pollan seemingly considers
enjoyment of the gustatory experience to be of paramount
importance in that relationship. He scoffs at Pollan’s
deficient investigative objectivity in, for example,
relying on the comments of poultry farmers in regard
to vegetarians rather than interviewing vegetarians
themselves. Myers concludes that The Omnivore's Dilemma
is “[a] record of the gourmet's ongoing failure
to think in moral terms.”

“ FOOD ANIMAL AGRICULTURE IN 2020”
is the title of the upcoming Future Trends in Animal
Agriculture (FTTA) Symposium, a public event to be
held September 20th at the U.S. Department of Agriculture
(USDA) in Washington, D.C. Among the scheduled speakers
are: Steve Kopperud of Policy Directions, Inc. (http://tinyurl.com/yqoo9a
); Wayne Pacelle of The Humane Society of the U.S.;
Ray Stricklin of the University of Maryland; and Dennis
Treacy of Smithfield Foods (see: http://tinyurl.com/2bqbp5
). Topics include: Ethics and Philosophy of Science,
the Future of Global Standards for Animal Production,
Outsourcing Food Animal Production: Projections for
Animal Welfare, and What Should Animal Agriculture
Look Like? A general discussion is also scheduled.
The FTAA is composed of industry groups, animal advocacy
organizations, consumer representatives, government
personnel, and others. Per the USDA: “The goal
of the symposium is to provide opportunities to discuss
contentious issues of significant societal interest
relating to animal well-being, in a non-threatening,
neutral atmosphere.” Advance registration is
recommended, but not required. For more information,
see: http://www.csrees.usda.gov/nea/animals/in_focus/wellbeing_if_trends07.html

ANIMALS MATTER! organized by Animals
Australia, is an “Australian first, bringing
together leading international and national animal
advocates to highlight how the work of their organisations
is changing the world for the better for animals.”
Among the scheduled speakers are: Amina Sarwat Abaza
of the Society for the Protection of Animal Rights
Egypt (http://www.sparealife.org/about.html);
Phil Brooke of Compassion in World Farming; Hans Kriek,
who has led the New Zealand campaign against battery
hen cages and pig stalls; Lyn White, who has conducted
three Middle East investigations into the treatment
of exported animals, and Phil Wollen of the Winsome
Constance Kindness trust: (http://tinyurl.com/35ltzz).
The conference will be held in Adelaide on October
13, 2007. For more information, see: http://www.animalsaustralia.org/events/

AG GUIDE REVISION INPUT INVITED
The Guide for the Care and Use of Agricultural Animals
in Agricultural Research and Teaching (the “Ag
Guide”) is being revised. The Federation of
Animal Science Societies (FASS)’s Ag Guide Revision
Committee is inviting “technical comments, suggestions,
and improvements” to the draft. Comments are
requested by November 9th and, ideally, will include
citations to relevant scientific work. More information
is at: http://www.fass.org/page.asp?pageID=216